Meaning in Context PDF

Meaning in context No one who speaks English has any difficulty understanding the meaning of a sentence like 'It's warm in here'. We all recognise that it is a comment on the temperature in some place or other. But why it is being said, and what the speaker wishes to convey by saying it, depends...

Meaning in context No one who speaks English has any difficulty understanding the meaning of a sentence like 'It's warm in here'. We all recognise that it is a comment on the temperature in some place or other. But why it is being said, and what the speaker wishes to convey by saying it, depends entirely on two things: the context in which it is said and what the speaker wants people to understand. Suppose, for example, that the words are spoken by someone who is either lazy, ill or in some position of power. 'It's warm in here' might then be either a request or an order for someone to open a window. If, however, two people come in out of the cold, 'It's warm in here' might well be an expression of satisfaction or pleasure. If, to give a third example, two people are trying to decide which room to use as their bedroom, the sentence 'It's warm in here' might serve as a suggestion to choose or not to choose the room. In each case, the sentence is performing a different language function (see page 76), e.g. requesting, suggesting, etc. The meaning of language depends on where it occurs within a larger stretch of discourse (see pages 76-78), and thus the relationship that the different language elements have with what comes before and after them. In other words, speakers and writers have to be able to operate with more than just words and grammar; they have to be able to string utterances together. The following conversation takes place in the context of two people getting ready for their party: A We can leave the ice here tilt we need it. B It's warm in here. A Is it? OK, then, let's find somewhere else. The utterance 'It's warm in here' acts as a rejection of A's suggestion. A can then use 'it' to refer to the whole of B's proposition ('It's warm in here'). And 'OK' suggests that A has absorbed all of the discourse so far (suggestion - rejection - agreement with the rejection) Words together Language functions Text and discourse Language variables 59 Chapter 5 and can then move the conversation on with a further suggestion. Our ability to function properly in conversation or writing, in other words, depends not only on reacting to the context in which we are using the language, but also on the relationship between words and ideas in longer texts. The elements of language Whatever the sentence 'It's warm in here' is used to mean, the speaker has put together a number of elements in order to get that meaning across: Grammar Our sentence depends, for its success, on putting a number of elements in the correct order, in this case subject (it), verb (is), complement ('warm' - called a complement because it adds information about the subject), and adverbial ('in here' - called adverbial because it further exemplifies the verb). The elements have to go in the right order for the sentence to work. If we tried to say '\*It here in warm is', the sentence would not work. In the same way, we have to be careful about the types of words we can put in the slots (subject, verb, etc). We can't, for example, put an adjective or an adverb in the subject slot ('\^stealthily is warm in here/inhospitable is warm in here'), or a verb in the adverbial position ('\*It's warm go'). However, there are some changes we are allowed to make to our sentence elements, and these will alter the meaning of the sentence. For example, a simple element-order change (subject-verb -\* verb-subject) will make our sentence into a question ('Is it warm in here?'). Unlike the example we have used so far, some sentences only have two elements, subject and verb (e.g. 'He laughed', 'They disagreed', 'It rained!'). Verbs such as these which don't take an object are called intransitive. Some verbs can be either transitive (i.e. they do take an object) or intransitive, e.g. 'She opened the door/The door opened. The one sentence element we have not mentioned so far is the object, exemplified in sentences such as 'He opened the door, 'He entered the warm room. Once again, the sequence of sentence elements is crucial, so we cannot say '\*The room entered he'. But the situation is complicated by the fact that some sentences have two objects, a direct object and an indirect object. Direct objects refer to things or persons affected by the verb, e.g. 'He sang a song, 'Pizarro conquered Peru, 'She loved him. An indirect object refers to the person or thing that (in one grammarian's phrase) 'benefits' from the action, e.g. 'He sang me a song', 'She painted him a picture', 'I gave a ring to my girlfriend', 'Why should we pay taxes to the government7.'. Not all sentences consist of just one clause (e.g. subject-verb-adverbial or subjectverb-object) in this way. We can make things considerably more complex by joining and amalgamating a number of different clauses. For example, the following sentences: 'The girl met the w om an.' 'The woman was standing by the canal.' 'They went to a cafe.' 'They had a m eal.' 'They enjoyed it very m uch.'